Madness
by Anneka Neko
Summary: ONESHOT. Madness often does funny things to the eyes, and maybe that was all there was to it, but the Hatter was fairly sure he recognized the man standing at the end of the table. Knave, a.k.a. Stayne/Hatter preslash.


Authoress' Notes:

**Edit!** I'd like to draw your attention to a community on LiveJournal devoted to this couple, Largeness&Muchness. The URL (remove the spaces) is http : // community . livejournal . com / hatterknave / and we've already got a fun group of people! So if you want more of this couple, please drop by! Feel free to post on our prompt thread with any ideas. **Edit!**

Well, I'm incredibly nervous, as I always am when venturing into a new fandom, but the severe lack of Stayne/Hatter fics forced my hand. I'm still feeling the characters out-- very much so, to tell you the truth. My Hatter's a little more... simple? I suppose? than most I've read thus far, simply because this is my favorite kind of crazy. 8D Also, my Knave has within him infinitely more badassery and psychosis than is shown here, but this is rather more a Hatter-centric piece.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, the gay would be _way_ more obvious.

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**Madness**

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The Mad Hatter awoke with a start at the sound of heavy footsteps crunching to a halt at the end of his table. He was having one of his beloved tea parties, and the fact that his friends were all busy certainly wasn't going to stop him-- he just drank his tea by himself, conversing with the air. But without the constant vigilance needed to duck incoming teacups, the Hatter often found himself nodding off at these solo parties, and it seemed it had happened again.

Madness often does funny things to the eyes, and maybe that was all there was to it, but the Hatter was fairly sure he recognized the man standing at the end of the table. The man's dark hair, scarred face and heart-shaped eye patch all rang the little bells in his head, the pleasant ones that went off for things like tea, or hats, or his dear friend Alice, but also the scary ones that heralded danger, or Alice's departure, or one of his infrequent yet memorable returns from the safety of madness into the terror and tragedy of sanity.

"Hatter," the newcomer said by way of a greeting, and the Hatter cracked a manic grin as he felt the itch in his brain that meant he knew something, because he knew the man's name, and it was dancing a futterwacken on the tip of his tongue, and a moment later he heard himself reply.

"Stayne. Care for some tea?"

The Knave's expression was one of intrigued bewilderment, and, even as he sat down and helped himself to tea, he said, "I just don't understand you, Hatter. All those fights, Alice, the exile, and you just invite me to tea as though none of it ever happened?"

The Hatter frowned, because even though it felt normal, and _right_, to invite Stayne to tea, an irritating little itch at the back of his mind said that they were supposed to be enemies. But that couldn't be, because he and Staynesie were the dearest of friends.

Or maybe they _had_ been. This time business was so dreadfully hard to keep track of, and sometimes the Hatter got a bit muddled about which was the past, and which was the present, and he was certain he'd misremembered the future once or twice as well.

"Ah, yes-- the exile," he decided to say, though it might have been a tad muffled by the scone he was eating. "Whatever happened to the dear old fathead?"

Stayne took a sip of tea, set the cup lightly down in the saucer, and smirked in a way the Hatter was pretty sure meant not-nice things. "A little... _accident_ befell her Majesty, and alas I am left to carry the sad tale home."

The Hatter wasn't completely sure what the Knave meant (or maybe he was sure, because he had the brain-itch again, the one that meant he knew something important, but it was so much easier to ignore it), but he smiled anyways and said, "Well, but now you're home, Staynesie, and that's what matters, eh?"

A reluctant smile, a real one, slipped across the Knave's face, twisting the scars that stood out on the pale skin. "You know, no one's called me that in ages." He took another sip of tea; when he spoke again, his voice was unusually soft. "You were always the only one stupid enough to try it, and the only one mad enough to get away with it." The Hatter's brain-itch was stronger than ever, and he giggled as he felt the butterflies that lived in his stomach wake up (they'd been dreadfully tired after Alice's last visit), but he decided to just move down a seat and begin another cup of tea.

"So," Stayne asked, clearing his throat, "how have you been, Hatter? Back to your trade, I suppose?" The Hatter giggled again, though he wasn't sure why, and nodded. Deciding he'd had enough from this cup, he stood and moved down the table again. He and the Knave now sat across the narrow table from each other.

A few minutes passed in silence-- so long as you ignored the Hatter's occasional bursts of singing, which Stayne was clearly trying his hardest to do. The Hatter's mind was a whirl of confusing memories and thoughts, and he wasn't completely sure what to make of them. He knew he was good friends with Staynesie, and he knew they were enemies, but both of those were in the past.

...at least, he thought they were in the past. That part was still a little confusing sometimes.

But still. He _knew_ what had happened before. He just couldn't understand what was supposed to happen _now_. The Hatter knew he wasn't smiling any more, but he couldn't help it, because he hated hated _hated _trying to understand these sorts of things. It was the same whirlwind in his head that Alice always left, only that whirlwind left shortly after Alice did, and Staynesie was from Underland, and he stayed here, so this whirlwind would probably stay. The Hatter's control was slipping, he was mumbling, muttering, giggling frantically, and he knew he wasn't making any sense, he never made any sense, but it was the only way he knew to keep his sanity at bay.

Suddenly, a hand cupped his left cheek. A moment later, its mate was on the right. The Hatter suddenly found himself staring into a dark, dark eye, and a familiar voice was in his ears, working its way into his brain and untangling, unwinding the twisting strings of thoughts and emotions scaring him so much.

"Hatter," Stayne said quietly, evenly, calmly.

And suddenly he could breathe again, and Staynesie was there, just like old times, and the Mad Hatter felt saner than he'd felt in... well, who knew how long, he didn't trust this "time" business anyways, but he was beginning to think that he and Staynesie were friends again after all, and the feeling made him want to futterwacken until he fell over, dead.

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Okay, I admit it-- I shouldn't be using him to write the Mad Hatter, but I got "Staynesie" from the little Cap'n Jack Sparrow in my head.

Remember that song, "Beautiful Disaster", that everyone was in love with back in the day? I feel like that song would work for my Hatter, only instead it'd be called "Beautiful, Bat-Shit Insane, Category Five Shit-Storm". A bit longwinded, but undeniably catchy. :D

Please review!


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